The J.ZED front engine
Dragster was built by my cousin Angelo Di Bella
(Di Bella Engineering) and myself over many
months. The objective was to build the fastest
ever Holden 6 powered car in the world.

The car was build in a
standard double garage, so the chromoly chassis
could only stretch to around 180 inches in
wheelbase. The motor was moved much further
forward than conventional rails, so that we could
keep the front wheels on the strip; however we
never run without wheelie bars.

Standard equipment
included a 2 speed power glide, Datsun diff with
spool (now 9" Ford), lightweight front axle and
a very flexible chassis.

The blown motor ran a
stock red crank and grout filled block, J.ZED
alloy head, solid roller cam, a tiny 2100
Whipple blower. With a Geoff Ramsay built blower
manifold and components. The basic methanol tune
us was set up by Maurice Fabietti but the final
tune up was mathematically created and installed
by our dear departed friend Sean Brown, boy we
miss him.

Our first full quarter
mile pass was achieved at Heathcote Park Drag
way in Victoria. Anyone who has raced there can
tell you that traction is sometimes lacking, but we still managed an 8.20 pass and the
motor ran sweetly.

The 2002 Winter
Nationals fully revealed the car's potential
where it ran, first a 7.80, then a string of
7.70's, all shutting down around the 1000ft mark
as the ring blow by was so great that my helmet
was covered with oil on every pass. Oh well we
still ran 168 mph and I know we could have run
into the 170 mph range if things were different.

Lots of people ask me
why I don't still run the blown motor. The basic
reason is that the blower rotors came loose and
we could never get the car to run the same and
getting another blower was not an option as
Whipple stopped making that model. The other
reason was that we wanted to run our naturally
aspirated motor in the 8 second mark and whilst
we have achieved that by running and 8.90 run at
146 mph, we now have put together a more
powerful combination making over 420 hp and over
300ft lb of torque, so we will see how quick we
can get the thing down the track before we go
back to an even more powerful blown motor.

We have customers all
over Australia and New Zealand using our heads
and components on carburetted, injected and ever
turbo motors are in the build, so there is still
plenty of life left in the old Holden....now if
we could just produce a block strong enough to
REV these things over 10,000 rpm, you watch how
the horsepower would climb!